Artificial sports surfaces such as artificial turf are well known and widely used as alternatives to natural grass surfaces. Artificial turf includes a mat into which are woven an array of naps that project upwardly and cover the mat, thereby providing cushioning and grip to the sports players. Often sand is added to the artificial turf and is worked into the area between the naps. During use, the naps are often flattened, thereby losing their cushioning and gripping properties, and may be embedded in the sand. The artificial surfaces must, therefore, be maintained to prevent deterioration. To maintain the surfaces and thereby extend their useful life, the naps must be returned to their original upright state and the sand scarified to prevent compaction. To achieve this, several designs of reconditioning device have been used, a few examples of which are illustrated below:                U.S. Pat. No. 5,218,732, issued Jun. 15, 1993, to Pettigrew for “Surface Treatment Apparatus”;        U.S. Pat. No. 5,562,779, issued Oct. 8, 1996, to Allaway for “Device and Method for Cleaning Particulate Material”; and        U.S. Pat. No. 5,951,780, issued Sep. 14, 1999, to Pettigrew for “Surface Treatment Method and Apparatus including Brush Means and Impact Means mounted on a Single Shaft”.        
The above-mentioned designs, however, suffer from a number of important disadvantages. One design appears to disclose a moving jet of air that dislodges particulate material from a sports surface and removes it into a manifold. This design may not be suitable to recondition sports surfaces by regenerating the surface components. Pettigrew's designs, while used for reconditioning artificial surfaces, appear to require a drive system to power a series of brushes, scarifying elements and swing hammers. Disadvantageously, spaces between the reconditioning components significantly reduce the effective area that is accessible to the components.
Most existing devices remove part of the aerated sand away from the surface along with undesired particulate debris, thereby requiring new sand to be deposited on and spread over the surface after reconditioning.
Thus there is a need for an improved sports surface reconditioning device.